FFXI Switch Monitor

FFXI Switch Monitor (FSM) is a small utility that was designed with the gamepad player in mind. Many of its feature set has been created to increase the game enjoyment while sitting on a couch, away from the keyboard and monitor.

Features:

Take control of your game!

Never use ALT-TAB again. With a click of a button, cycle between multiple game instances on your PC quickly and easily.

Block game windows from being switched to.

Assign built-in functionality to your joystick buttons:

Toggle the current game window between normal size and "maximize", for those times you need to concentrate on the action for one character.

Quickly show and hide your magnifier windows.

Cycle between magnifier sets as the game demands.

Easily assign buttons by pressing it while inside the drop-down box.

A powerful magnification feature allows you zoom in on those hard to read spots when sitting away from your monitor or TV:

Resize and move the magnifiers however you please, there is no limit to the amount of windows you may create and use.

Panning the window contents allows you to target different locations on the game window.

While panning, a blue band will be drawn on the window to help you fine-tune your setup.

Zoom as close or as far away as you please. Need to pan outside the game window? You can do that too.

Finally happy with where your windows are placed? Afraid you will accidentally pan the inside with a stray mouse click? Ensure they stay there by locking them in place.

Toggle between border and borderless modes when you need optimal window placement. Afraid you will lose the ability to drag the windows without the border? Simply right-click and drag them.

Do you insist that one particular window stays above everything else? Then set it to be Always On Top.

Have that perfect window setup for your raid WHM but need something completely different for your grouping BRD? Use magnifier sets!

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How To Use:

FFXI Switch Monitor (FSM) sits quietly in your tray. To access its functionlity simply right-click on the icon to bring up its menu:

Main Menu (tray)

Menu Options

Options: Brings up the options dialog box (below)Refresh Game Windows: Manually looks for any new game windows that may have been loaded since last checked.

New Magnifier: Creates a new magnifier window within the current set. If you have previously closed a window without removing its state it will open it instead.Show All Magnifiers: Opens all magnifiers within the current set that you have closed.Hide All Magnifiers: Closes all open magnifiers within the current set.

New Magnifier Set: Creates a new set from the name of your choosing.Change Magnifier Set: Deactivates the current set and activates the set of your choosing.Remove Magnifier Set: Permanently removes all magnifier state information from the set of your choosing. Takes effect immediatly.

Save Now: Flushes all configuration to storage immediately instead of waiting for the program to exit.Exit: Closes the application

Options Dialog

General Tab

Window List

The window list displays the currently known game windows on your system and includes some basic information. When FSM detects a new window, this list will be automatically updated.

A star (*) will indicate which window is currently active in your switch cycle. Note that this may differ from which game window has focus.

Flags indicate if your game window can be cycled to. By default, all new windows detected are allowed. To change this, simply right click the game window in the list and choose the "Allow/Deny Window Toggle" menu item.

Detection Control

Detection control allows you specify when new windows are checked for, which may be altered for performance reasons:

Poll the Window List Periodically: Checks the windows at the given interval, every 5 seconds by default.

Only when i manually Refresh: Does not check until you choose the "Refresh Game Windows" option from the main menu.

When I switch game windows: Performs the check just before switching windows. This option may experience a slight delay when switching windows when using this option, but will gaurantee that new windows are detected in a timely fashion.

Magnification

Magnification can come with a huge CPU hit depending on how many windows are open at the time. This option will allow you to fine tune the draw rate for all windows you use globally.

A framerate of 30 FPS will need to be as low as 33MS, however 100 has been observed to be "not annoying". Higher settings will save your pc cycles but will come at the cost of stuttering.

Gamepad Tab

Gamepad Selection

The drop down will be populated with a list of joysticks on your system which you may adjust to your liking. Note that it is possible to lose your button assignments if your change to a joystick on your system that doesnt support them.

Note that new joysticks are currently only detected when starting Switch Monitor.

Actions

To assign a button to an action, simply highlight the action in the list and press the "Assign..." button. A dialog will popup and ask you to press the desired button.

Careful!

FFXI Switch Monitor shares the game pad with your game window, so if you have that button assigned to something in game it will happen there as well!

It is highly recommended that your reconfigure the game so that those buttons do nothing while playing. For FFXI, my recommendation is to unassign the "take picture" and "full screen" buttons and use those. If you need to access more than two features, enable the quick menu by assigning a button to it.

Menu Tab

Layout

Selecting: The quick menu can be customized to your needs. If you only need access to a couple features, then simply
uncheck the features you do not want. You must, however, select at minimal one item from the list.

Ordering: You may choose the draw order for the menu icons by prioritizing them with the toolbar on the right. Icons begin at the top and are spaced evenly clockwise from there.

Titles: If you want to customize the text that is displayed while the selector is pointing to the item, simply double-click the entry and enter the text in the box that pops up. Note that "\n" will be replaced as a new line and that there are a few built-in tokens that are replaced before display; these are covered on the ui form.

Appearance

Background Color: This is the color of the menu box. Note that there is presently no method to make this transparent.

Base Color: A few basic ui components will be rendered in this color

Selector Color: The color of the moving arrow which points at the currently selected item

Text Color: Color of the menu item title that is displayed for the currently selected item

Opacity: The percentage of translucency of the menu window

Behavior

Play confirmation sound: Sometimes it may be unclear if an action was performed from the menu, especially if the analog joystick is let go before releasing the menu button. This will ensure an audio sound is played when the item is successfully chosen.

Analog Sensitivity: The resting threshhold of the analog joystick. The larger the number the farther out the stick must be pressed before an item can be chosen. Sensitivity may be specified up to 30,000 which represents the outer most edge.

Draw Rate: The time interval the menu is redrawn. Will impact animation timings ;(

Quick Menu

Overview

The menu is a popup window that allows you to quickly access your favorite features. It may be customized in many aspects and works exclusivly with the gamepad.

To use the gamepad, you must first bind a button to it within the options panel (see above).

Use

The popup menu is only displayed while your assigned button is HELD down. While held, rotate the main analog of your joystick and you will notice the selection arrow move to the corresponding angle.

When the arrow moves in the selection area of an item, the item will push out and the title text will be displayed in the middle. This denotes that the item is currently selected. To choose the item and activate the feature depress the assigned menu button while still holding the analog in the correct direction.

If you have changed your mind and do not want to make any selection, release the analog first then depress the menu button.

Note that it is not currently possible to change which analog to use if using a joystick with multiple sticks.

Moving the window

The menu window can be moved to any location on the screen that you choose. Simply hold the assigned menu button down and while keeping it held, drag the window with your mouse. When you depress the menu button the new location will be permanently saved.

Magnifier Windows

Overview

Magnification is a powerful built in feature that allows you sit back on the couch and read your vital stats without squinting your eyes.

A must have for us poor guys with our favorite comfy seat a mile away from the tiny monitor screen or those fortunate enough to run with a dual screen setup.

Working with magnifier windows

Panning (mouse left-click drag): Target key points on your game window and explode them to eye-popping proportions! Simply left click inside the window and drag with your mouse. Watch as the little blue box lights up on your game to show you exactly where your going and how big your target actually is.

Dragging (mouse right-click drag): Moves the window around, simply a must when your window is borderless.

BorderLess Mode (mouse left-double click): Toggles the window border on and off to help conserve as much room on the desktop as possible.

Always on Top (Context Menu): Forces the magnifier to always be above other windows, even your game.

Lock Window (Context Menu): Prevents the window from being able to Pan, Drag, or change Border Modes.

Lock Source (Context Menu): By default magnifier windows will change to the active game window. Locking the source will ensure only the character you locked on to will be displayed.

Remove Window State (Context Menu): Completely removes the window state from the configuration. Takes effect immediatly.